San Diego development projects we're watching in 2024
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The San Diego skyline is seen from across the bay in 2022. Photo: Daniel Knighton via Getty Images
San Diego loves a megaproject. Whether it's a stadium, arena, convention center or urbanist wonderland, city debates for years have been driven by redevelopment ambitions.
Driving the news: In 2024, we've got our eyes on five big-time developments that are either on their way to completion or teetering on the brink.
Why it matters: Elected officials have hung political capital — and public resources — on some of these projects, while others simply promise to remake areas of the city based on their success or failure.
The 101 Ash and Civic Center Redevelopment
Mayor Todd Gloria succeeded in his push to settle a city lawsuit over its disastrous lease of a downtown high-rise by buying the building outright.
- Once 101 Ash belonged to the city, Gloria roped it into his planned revitalization of the five-block Civic Center area, including City Hall.
Yes, but: Developers mostly balked at the city's request for bids, with no one submitting a plan for the full project.
- One developer proposed turning 101 Ash into affordable housing, with the city entering into a 90-day negotiating window last August that expired late last year.
The latest: Negotiations are ongoing, according to Gloria's spokesperson Rachel Laing.
- "There's no formal extension needed but conversations have been productive and are continuing," she told Axios. "We should have more definitive next steps later this month."
What we're watching: The outcome of those negotiations will determine if the scandal-plagued high-rise morphs into 400 affordable apartments. In the meantime, Laing said the city is preparing to issue a request for bids from developers for the rest of the Civic Center area.
Midway Rising
The city's 52-acre Midway redevelopment got a boost when a superior court judge ruled last month the area's 30-foot height limit on new developments no longer applied, following legal challenges over voters' approval in 2020 and 2022 to waive the restriction.
- The project includes a 16,000-seat arena, a walkable retail district and over 4,000 housing units, nearly half reserved for lower-income residents.
Yes, but: In October, developers scratched plans for a hotel and 250 homes for middle income residents that were part of the proposal approved by the City Council in 2022.
- The developer itself changed, too, after a subsidiary of The Kroenke Group bought a majority interest in the project last summer.
- The city started the project's environmental review in late December, which revealed, as the Union-Tribune reported, that it includes almost half the commercial square footage from the initial deal.
What we're watching: The city and developers are hoping to complete the environmental process by the end of 2024 so they can come to a final financial agreement.
- We'll be looking for other changes to the project as those two processes play out.
San Diego Convention Center Expansion
It's hard to imagine a San Diego in which this project isn't in some sort of purgatory, but this could be the year.
- A state appeals court last August ruled voters had approved a 2020 hotel tax increase to expand the convention center, improve roads and fund homeless services, again clarifying that citizen initiatives need 50% approval, not the typical two-thirds support required for other tax increases.
Yes, but: The court sent the city and plaintiffs back to the superior court to determine whether a Convention Center Corp. board member's involvement in the citizens' initiative meant it wasn't really a citizens' initiative, and thus needed to meet the higher threshold.
What we're watching: An attorney for the effort to expand the Convention Center told the Union-Tribune in November he hoped the superior court could resolve the remaining issue in the first half of 2024 — though he conceded more appeals could follow.